Over the past decade access to the Internet has become more and more important. For many, the Internet is now indispensable for business and personal communication, education, commerce, entertainment, recreation, and other uses. Today, many commercial establishments provide their patrons access to the Internet. This access may be through a wired Internet access port that users plug their computers into or may be through a wireless system. Due to recent advances in Internet access technology, the day is rapidly approaching when every public facility, every coffeehouse, mall, or airport, will provide access to the Internet, much as they currently provide chairs for patrons to sit on, electric lighting to see by, and heating for the patron's comfort.
Commercial establishments that provide Internet access may wish to present a user with information related to their product at the time the user accesses the Internet. If a commercial establishment is providing Internet access for free, they may wish to notify their patrons of this generosity. If they wish to charge for providing access, they may wish to provide the user with payment terms. The user might then be asked to accept the payment terms and perhaps provide payment information before access to the Internet would be granted.
One method used by some hotels, and other Internet access providers, to ensure that such information is provided to the user and to ensure the user accepts the payment conditions, is to wait for the user to attempt to access a web page, and then “hijack” that connection and display a different page, of the provider's choosing, instead.
FIG. 1 is a process flow diagram depicting how this is done. Process 100 shown in FIG. 1 begins at operation 105 in which a user connects to the Internet. This may be accomplished by plugging a computer into a wired Internet connection port such as an Ethernet jack, or without wires by accessing a wireless network gateway such as an IEEE 802.11 wireless access point.
At operation 110 the user runs their web browser and attempts to access a World Wide Web (web) address (e.g., http://www.uspto.gov). That the user will run a web browser is an assumption that providers make based upon their presumption that anyone who accesses the Internet wishes to access the World Wide Web (web).
At operation 115 the access provider intercepts the user's request for a specific web page and gives the user the wrong page (e.g., the provider's sign-on page). The system basically shunts the user from the address they requested, to a display of the provider's choosing. At operation 120 the user receives the information directed by the access provider and acts upon it if necessary. Only now is the user provided Internet access. At operation 125 the user must now reenter their request for a specific web address.
This method is problematic for both the provider and the user for several reasons. First, not everyone who accesses the Internet uses a web browser or accesses the web. Though the web is popular, there are many other reasons to access the Internet (e.g., e-mail, file sharing, encrypted telnet). Therefore, a system that relies on the user's accessing the web will miss the opportunity to contact and charge many users who have no need to use a web browser.
Second, this type of hijacking of the user's connection violates the end-to-end principle. The end-to-end principle is a fundamental concept of network development with the purpose of ensuring the reliability and integrity of the developing Internet. Basically stated, the principle holds that the job of any reliable network infrastructure is simply to deliver network packets to the destination address specified in the packet header, not to look inside the packets, try to understand what the contents mean, alter the contents, deliberately divert packets to a different destination, or to forge reply packets that purport to originate from the intended destination. Though in this case a user will be quite aware that they have been shunted to a billing information and authorization page, every time the end-to-end principle is ignored the reliability and flexibility of the Internet is diminished.
Third, this method involves the added and frustrating burden of attempting to access information only to be shunted to a billing page after which you must reaccess the desired information.